[5E] - Warlock Pact: The Famished Dark (PEACH)

[Surrealistik]

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJjX-ujfb

Obviously inspired by the Darkwraiths of Dark Souls and Gul'dan.

The Life Drain attack was intended to be competitive with Eldritch Blast using the ever obligatory Agonizing Blast.

[Ziegander]

Life drain is absurdly overpowered, way, way stronger than Agonizing Eldritch Blast without even costing an invocation, and the enhancement of spells or melee attacks is beyond gratuitous.

[Surrealistik]

Life drain is absurdly overpowered, way, way stronger than Agonizing Eldritch Blast without even costing an invocation, and the enhancement of spells or melee attacks is beyond gratuitous.

Really? I'm legitimately curious; how do you figure?

I mean you start off at 1d10 + Cha at range which scales up to 4d10 + 4xCha with Eldritch Blast at the exact same time Life Drain scales up, on top of which you get other riders (albeit with Invocation investment, sure), and you can also readily combine Eldritch Blast with other features like Action Surge and Sorc metamagic, whereas Life Drain has a hard limit of 1 / turn. Though it's true that Life Drain has the temp HP, Eldritch Blast in general typically remains the more powerful option ultimately in light of all the synergies and riders.

Maybe my perception is a little skewed by seeing such powerful synergies and riders in action repeatedly (and using them first hand), but I just can't see how Life Drain really overwhelms EB.


Also just to be clear, the enhancement only adds the Con save effect rider; it doesn't actually increase the damage of spells/attacks (well, besides changing damage to necrotic), or otherwise add Life Drain's damage to them. Max HP reduction is generally cosmetic when used against NPC combatants (really, how often does something retreat, peacing out of an encounter, then attack you later such that it had a chance to heal up, but before a Long Rest time has elapsed), so the temp HP is the only material additional thing you get out of enhancing a spell/attack. I do think that it should probably have some kind of action cost however; perhaps a bonus action, or reaction.

[Lalliman]

The Life Drain attack doesn't seem that bad to me. See the damage numbers below. The damage is very close to Eldritch Blast, with the downsides of not dealing force damage, being a melee attack, and not being divisible between multiple targets. The selling point is the THP, and they do get pretty high at higher levels. But compare them to Dark One's Blessing, also listed below. Of course, Dark One's Blessing only activates upon kill, which makes Life Drain more accessible in many situations, but not all. When you're facing groups of weak enemies, you'd be much better off having Eldritch Blast and Dark One's Blessing, because Eldritch Blast gives you multiple chances to kill someone and get the THP, while Life Drain only gives you one shot, and leaves you vulnerable if you miss. I do wonder why you chose to enlarge the damage die as you level, which no other attack or spell does.

Spoiler: Damage numbers

Show

2nd level (assumed 16 Cha)
Eldritch Blast: 8.5 force damage
Life Drain: 6.5 necrotic damage + gain 3 THP
Dark One's Blessing: 5 THP on kill

5th level (assumed 18 Cha)
Eldritch Blast: 19 force damage
Life Drain: 17 necrotic damage + gain 8 THP
Dark One's Blessing: 9 THP on kill

11th level (assumed 20 Cha)
Eldritch Blast: 31.5 force damage
Life Drain: 31.5 + gain 15 TPH
Dark One's Blessing: 16 THP on kill

17th level
Eldritch Blast: 42 force damage
Life Drain: 46 necrotic damage + gain 23 THP
Dark One's Blessing: 22 THP on kill

To be fair, I am comparing it to the most powerful of the three 1st-level features. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up performing a little too well, I'm just saying that it doesn't seem obviously overpowered. I'm a bit more concerned with the ability to enhance your spells though. Do warlocks get any spells that deal a ton of single-target damage? I don't know off the top of my head.

Siphon Essence is hard to estimate. Anything that lets you regain spell slots seems more powerful than the 6th level features of the other patrons, which all allow you to do something mildly useful once per short rest. I think you'll just need to test it.

Conduit of Dark is again hard to assess, because it's an active ability with a steep cost, as opposed to the mostly passive features the other patrons get at 10th level.

By Darkness Devoured seems fine. It's more powerful than Dark Delirium and Hurl Through Hell, but using it draws from a resource pool that you need for your other features.

Overall it seems test-worthy. I like the theme, it makes for a good antithesis to the Undying Light.

[Ziegander]

Adding the life drain rider, even without bonus damage, which needs to be clarified in the write up, to a melee weapon attack or any spell is abusive. Just for starters, Eldritch Blast, and any other cantrip, is a spell, but regardless, area spells, single-target damage, it just seems very, very strong as a temp hp buffer source. Much more reliable than Dark One's Blessing in my opinion.

[Surrealistik]

Adding the life drain rider, even without bonus damage, which needs to be clarified in the write up, to a melee weapon attack or any spell is abusive. Just for starters, Eldritch Blast, and any other cantrip, is a spell, but regardless, area spells, single-target damage, it just seems very, very strong as a temp hp buffer source. Much more reliable than Dark One's Blessing in my opinion.

Well I definitely agree there should be some kind of action cost, which I've added in the form of a reaction.

In terms of the rider itself though, it does require failure of a Con save which tends to be among the best monster saves; if we assume a 50% save failure rate, that averages out to 1/4th of damage output as THP.

Assuming a failed save on Finger of Death, averaging 61.5 damage, that works out to 15.375 THP.

Assuming a failed save on Blight, averaging 36 damage, that works out to 9 THP.

That said, these THPs do not stack unless explicitly noted (as in the case of Conduit of Dark), with only the highest instance applying. This significantly diminishes what might otherwise be abusive such as the case of a spell with multiple targets, like Circle of Death; each target makes a Con save, and each failure is a separate instance of THP that overlaps, but does not stack.


Concerning Siphon Essence, I made the basic assumption that the Warlock would always be maxing out his essence per short rest, and would always spend them on regaining spell slots. This works out to 3 Essence per short rest when he first gets the feature at L6; essentially he gets an extra Pact spell slot per 2 short rests, or roughly 1 extra slot per day near the end of the adventuring day assuming that the DM adheres to the DMG recommendations for a typical adventuring day.

Naturally this ramps up over time when Pact Magic slots stop increasing in level; at level 19 he has the potential to gain enough Essence per short rest to gain an extra spell slot; until then it will take 2 short rests (or close to the end/at the end of a typical adventuring day) at minimum from 0 Essence to gain an 'extra' spell slot.

[Surrealistik]

Added 3 invocations: Blade In Darkness, Writ In Blood and Bound In Shadow

[Surrealistik]

More invocations.